On June 19, 2026, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) constituted a seven-member working group on artificial intelligence to develop governance frameworks and safeguards for the insurance sector. The move signals a direct push to balance AI-driven innovation with policyholder protection as the technology reshapes underwriting, claims, and fraud detection.
Chairing the panel is Sandeep K. Shukla, director of IIIT Hyderabad. The group includes Nandakumar Saravade, former CEO of ReBIT; Ashutosh Bahuguna, scientist at CERT-In; Manoj Nayak, CISO of SBI Life Insurance; Shivanath Somanathan, CISO of Star Health & Allied Insurance; and Steve D'Souza, chief risk officer of ICICI Lombard General Insurance. Deepak Gaikwad, General Manager and CISO of IRDAI, serves as member-convener.
Mandate and scope
The working group will assess the adoption, maturity, and governance of AI systems across regulated insurance entities in India. It has been told to conduct a structural review of existing AI applications-charting what is in use, how it is managed, and where gaps exist.
IRDAI also wants the panel to study the implications of frontier AI technologies, recommend security controls to counter AI-driven automated attacks, and examine whether sector-wide stress tests are needed. A key deliverable is an AI governance framework that ensures ethical, transparent, and explainable use of AI in areas like claims management and fraud detection.
Audit and global alignment
The group will propose an AI audit framework covering both pre-deployment and post-deployment requirements. It will also review how other regulators internationally are approaching AI in insurance, and identify skill gaps and capacity-building needs for insurers, intermediaries, and supervisors.
The working group's focus on governance and audits reflects the growing demand for AI for Insurance professionals who can navigate the intersection of technology, regulation, and risk. IRDAI said the fast pace of AI development is creating new ethical, operational and cybersecurity challenges, making strong governance frameworks essential for the insurance industry to use the technology responsibly.
Why this matters for insurance professionals
For insurance leaders, risk officers, and CISOs, this working group is not a distant policy exercise. Its outputs-audit standards, security controls, and skill-gap analyses-will directly shape compliance requirements and operational expectations. Building internal AI governance capability now is a practical move, not a speculative one, especially as the regulator signals that explainability and data protection will be non-negotiable.
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